Just wondering if anyone with AT&T internet experiencing extremely slow downloads of game updates and patches. There are a few people on the Playstation forums reporting this as well. It seems that the problem may have begun with the newest system update.

I'm currently downloading a Borderlands patch (67MB) and it's taking 30 minutes. I have 6Mbps speed (DSL). Seems that downloading things such as demos work perfectly fine but updates/patches are insanely slow.

Actually, the same thing has been happening to me with 360 dl's also. Not sure if this is just an ATT thing or what. But it's also universal to demos, dlc, and full games. All really slow this past week or two.

I had ATT for years without issue. I first ran into problems when I got my Slim to replace my old 60gig. I always thought people were crazy when they complained about slow connection speeds with PSN. But as great as my new Slim is, the connection speeds have been awful. It tests just fine (~3Mps), but in actual practice it connects at a snail's pace. This applies to my trophy syncs, friend lists, downloads, etc.

But over the past week or so, it's been really bad. And it seems to be affecting my 360, too. I'm in the process of doing a full diagnostic (software and hardware) to make sure it's not on my end. I'm hoping I find an easy fix because this sucks.

They may be throttling traffic to your detriment. Some folks were having a similar problem with Comcast back in 2009 and resolved it with a local proxy on their PC. Here's a link.

The other possible source I remember reading about a while back was having some part of your routing information used to determine what server to connect you to for your downloads, and for some folks this wound up directing them to really far away servers that killed their transfer speed. I don't recall if there was a fix for that one.

They may be throttling traffic to your detriment. Some folks were having a similar problem with Comcast back in 2009 and resolved it with a local proxy on their PC. Here's a link.

The other possible source I remember reading about a while back was having some part of your routing information used to determine what server to connect you to for your downloads, and for some folks this wound up directing them to really far away servers that killed their transfer speed. I don't recall if there was a fix for that one.

- Jer

Wow. Thanks. I'll follow up on this.

EDIT: Awesome. I tried setting up a DMZ, but that had no effect. Using privoxy seems to be the better solution. That seems to have improved my download speeds (screw you, AT&T), but not PSN-specific things like trophy syncs and friend comparisons. I think that's all on Sony. My connection tests at the same speed as before (~4Mbs), but the actual speed is much closer to that number than it was before. A 2Gb download now takes around 50 mins instead of 2-3 hours. Not as great as my connection speeds used to be on my 60gb PS3, but better than they've been since I got my Slim.

Just wondering if anyone with AT&T internet experiencing extremely slow downloads of game updates and patches. There are a few people on the Playstation forums reporting this as well. It seems that the problem may have begun with the newest system update.

I'm currently downloading a Borderlands patch (67MB) and it's taking 30 minutes. I have 6Mbps speed (DSL). Seems that downloading things such as demos work perfectly fine but updates/patches are insanely slow.

I have been having the same problem since before Thanksgiving with AT&T (6Mbps ).....been getting the run around... I use to be able to turn on the PS3 and would get instant on-line...now it take 3 - 4 mintues for my freinds list to fully pop up.....I have all new cables, Netgear Comb modern & routes, even a new slim ps3....running hardwire to 3 different PS3's...... had 3 different TECH out here to check my line...everything seem to be Okay...I don't think it a download problem, the upload seem to take forever to get a reading using Speedtest and Speakeasy.......seem my only luck is there installing opitcal lines in the area......I am locate in the San Fran Area ( Newark ) Calif

I have been having the same problem since before Thanksgiving with AT&T (6Mbps ).....been getting the run around... I use to be able to turn on the PS3 and would get instant on-line...now it take 3 - 4 mintues for my freinds list to fully pop up.....I have all new cables, Netgear Comb modern & routes, even a new slim ps3....running hardwire to 3 different PS3's...... had 3 different TECH out here to check my line...everything seem to be Okay...I don't think it a download problem, the upload seem to take forever to get a reading using Speedtest and Speakeasy.......seem my only luck is there installing opitcal lines in the area......I am locate in the San Fran Area ( Newark ) Calif

I'm also in the Bay Area with AT&T. Try doing what jhaines suggested above. It seems to have improved my download speeds quite a bit. AT&T may be selectively throttling bandwidth (targeting bandwidth hogs like gaming consoles). But, as I said, it didn't improve the time it takes to load up friends and trophies, just downloads. I think the trophy/friend stuff is all on Sony's end.

Oh, and also, I think I know why my 360 was downloading things so slowly, too. My Gold membership lapsed last week. Didn't think download speeds would be affected, but once I renewed my Gold membership, DL speeds are back up to normal. Go figure.

I'm having the same issues and I have AT&T as well. The downloads take so freakin long I have just been canceling them and not downloading stuff even though I want to try out some demos. It's ridiculous. Also, my Netflix on PS3 used to get me the Xhigh HD and looked great, recently though it only can get me the high HD feed and it has macroblocking and compression like crazy, especially in dark scenes. It's aweful.

I was totally in the same boat. Downloads for demos were taking so long that I was just canceling them altogether.

Try setting up your PC as a local proxy and see what happens. Either speeds dramatically improved over the weekend, or setting up my PC with privoxy actually helped a lot. It wasn't that difficult to get working, and I want to make sure it's not just me that it helped.

Network speed at PSN, (and everywhere else), is subject to the number of users accessing it at any given time. For USA based customers, I would GUESS that weekdays during 6pm-12pm EST it would get progressively slower as more kiddies get out of school and it follows the sun from east coast time to west coast time.

Unless you have a special account, AT&T cannot tell the difference between a PS3, an XBox, or a PC, since they only see your router/modem/gateway. So, if adding a proxy (which nominally slows things down a bit) seems to give faster downloads then it is just your imagination or lucky timing.

Like I said, I really have no idea where the issue is/was actually happening. It seems like a few things combined for me all at once (XBLA membership expired, PS3 started slowing down to a crawl, etc). That's why I asked other folks with the same problem to try the same workaround--to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence. Could be location-specific (Bay Area). Could be ISP specific (AT&T). Could be network specific (on my end). And so on. No way to know until other folks try the same thing and verify.

However, time of day has no bearing whatsoever on how fast/slow my PSN connection is. Trophy syncs and friends info loads up slow, slow, slow no matter what I do or when I do it. Most of my gaming is done late at night (12a-3a, Pacific) when connections should, according to your logic, be faster. But time of day only seems to affect the speed of specific online game servers (matchmaking, lag during play, etc), not my PSN connection speed.

EDIT: As with most things network related, logic goes out the window quickly. Your best bet is to just try a bunch of **** until something works. Once it does, then you can work backwards to figure out why, but not before. Inductive reasoning works better than deductive when it comes to network problems.

Gonna try the proxy thing when I get home. It's pretty weird b/c not everything is affected. I was downloading the Wipeout demo and speed was perfectly fine (1MB every 2-3 seconds) but COD:BO and Borderlands patches were super slow. I don't think my Netflix is affected but my Vudu seems to be. I was trying to watch a few 3D vids in HD and they would need to buffer after 10 seconds or so.

Unless you have a special account, AT&T cannot tell the difference between a PS3, an XBox, or a PC, since they only see your router/modem/gateway. So, if adding a proxy (which nominally slows things down a bit) seems to give faster downloads then it is just your imagination or lucky timing.

Not sure what to tell you, but something's not adding up in what one (or both) of us is saying. I'm far from an expert on network-related issues, so I don't know why this works, but it absolutely does.

I did some quick common-sense troubleshooting. Basically, I picked a sizable demo (~2gigs) and started downloading with privoxy running on my PC with my PS3 connecting via proxy. Estimated time to download: 50mins. I double-checked my PS3's network settings and speeds. All looks fine and works great. Same on my PC's end. Happy as a clam.

Next, I just disabled the proxy connection in the PS3's network settings. Tried downloading the same demo. Estimated time to download: 6 hours. Double-checked and tested settings and speeds. Looks fine (tests at ~5Mps), but doesn't work fine (super slow download speeds). PC settings look great and work great. Not at all happy.

I went back and forth a few times just to make sure it wasn't a "coincidence." Nope. Consistent results with drastically different connection speeds. I couldn't tell you the why's and wherefore's, but setting up my PC as a proxy server made a clear and substantial difference.

My guess: AT&T can distinguish between individual IP addresses on your home network and throttles them accordingly. But that's just a guess. This only started happening over the last week or two completely out of the blue. Again, I don't know a hell of a lot when it comes to network issues. I usually just try a bunch of **** until something finally works. All I know is that this clearly works!

Here is experience today so far. I went into the PSN Store to download the Killzone 3 single player demo which was about 1.5 gigs. At first when I started the demo and stayed in the PS Store and waited for the download it had a estimated download time of over 5000 minutes. After about a minute of waiting I finally got the option to select the "download in background" option. After I selected download in background that made a HUGE difference and sped up the download by a lot while I was watching the download under download management.

I seriously have no idea why "download in background" option sped up the download. The download finished in 15 minutes. Which is about right on a 6MB download DSL connection.

But I still am having the problem when trying to download a game update for Test Drive Unlimited 2. This a forced mandatory game update where "download in background" is not an option.

Up until about 2 weeks ago my DSL service was fine with AT&T and I had no problems with downloading game updates, demos, DLC, and other media off PSN or PS3. I downloaded the HUGE Gran Turismo 5 game updates. The HUGE DC Universe beta install. I don't know what the hell AT&T changed or did to their service.

I'm so pissed that if even after playing around and configuring privoxy for a proxy setup does not help.I will cancel AT&T U-Verse and go back to Time Warner Cable. Since there is no contract and no early termination fees for leaving AT&T U-Verse.

Same thing happened to me. I have AT&T U-Verse (12mbps). All of my downloads were relatively fast up until a week or so ago. Now only SOME things download fast off of PSN, but things like The Tester, Pulse, Game Patches, etc are excruciatingly slow. Funny thing is I downloaded QORE (over 1gb) in less than an hour last night. I've tried everything from static IP's and Port Forwarding, DHCP, and turning off and on certain settings on the PS3. NOTHING has worked.

Also, now when I run a connection test I am only showing 2.5-3.5mbps down and 1.3mbps up. I have also noticed that on SpeedTest from my PC whenever I run a test to a server in my home state (California) I have a very high ping (150-500) depending on the server I choose; which also results in a very slow DL speed. Whenever I choose a neighboring state my ping drops down to 23-53 and my DL/UL speeds are back up to where they should be.

I know it has to do with something with AT&T because I went into work 10 miles away and downloaded the latest PS3 update in no time flat; we're on Verizon Business DSL. At home I could barely get 13kb/s using the Playstation website for the manual update of the latest 3.56 patch.

Going to try and get a hold of tech support to find out what the heck is going on. If I get it resolved I'll post back my findings here.

Don't bother wasting your time calling AT&T's tech support. I called tonight and went through the tier 1 & tier 2 level support tech's and they were seriously idiots. Tier 1 they make you do the stupid basic troubleshooting like powering off & on the gateway. Then have you go to www.speedtest.net to run the DSL speed tests. Tier 2 tech was so stupid that he didn't even know how to get into the gateway's homepage when I already was in there and for days have been playing with all the settings trying to get this issue fixed. Tier 2 tech even suggested this "I'd recommend changing and seeing what SSID broadcast channel works best for you". I asked how come I can't enable Upnp on the gateaway and the tier 2 tech had no answer. I asked could you help with a proxy setup and his response was "Oh yeah well I can't help you with that setup because it's beyond the scope of what we support.But I can recommend you to a service we offer that costs $15 a month that will help you with that setup".

Honestly, folks, just follow the link that jhaines posted above for setting up your PC as a local proxy server. If that doesn't work for you, no harm no foul. Then you can go back to complaining to AT&T. But it worked great for me. No problems so far. Not sure what's causing the issue, though. If it is selective throttling of bandwidth, I don't think there's much we can do about it unless we're willing to pay more for faster connections and higher bandwidth allowances.

I was on a wireless connection in my room. So to further trouble shoot. I went into the room where AT&T's 2WIRE gateway is located in my house and connected my PS3 directly to the gateway with a wired connection using a ethernet connection and still the same results. Ran the PS3 internet connection test and was only getting 12MB download which I was also getting when my PS3 was setup on a wireless connection. Tried downloading the LBP2 game update and estimated time is still over 45 minutes.

(I'm posting this on as many forums as I can to get the word out, it frustrated the crap out of me)

Hey everyone, the slow PS3 downloads seem to be a DNS issue. This all started a few weeks ago when my PS3 failed to update to 3.56. After troubleshooting, I downloaded the 3.56 update on my PC, directly from Sony's site, and could only manage 20 kb/s. At this point, I knew it was not PS3 related. A few years ago, I had a similar issue with ATT DSL and had to use alternate DNS servers to fix my problem. Sure enough, changing my PS3 DNS Servers fixed this issue for me, yet again.

Here's a short tutorial for those who may need step by step instructions:
#1 - Go to Network Settings on your PS3
#2 - Select Customized
#3 - Use either Wired or Wireless, depending on your connection.
#4 - Enter your information as usual, when you get to "DNS Servers",
manually enter:

(I'm posting this on as many forums as I can to get the word out, it frustrated the crap out of me)

Hey everyone, the slow PS3 downloads seem to be a DNS issue. This all started a few weeks ago when my PS3 failed to update to 3.56. After troubleshooting, I downloaded the 3.56 update on my PC, directly from Sony's site, and could only manage 20 kb/s. At this point, I knew it was not PS3 related. A few years ago, I had a similar issue with ATT DSL and had to use alternate DNS servers to fix my problem. Sure enough, changing my PS3 DNS Servers fixed this issue for me, yet again.

Here's a short tutorial for those who may need step by step instructions:
#1 - Go to Network Settings on your PS3
#2 - Select Customized
#3 - Use either Wired or Wireless, depending on your connection.
#4 - Enter your information as usual, when you get to "DNS Servers",
manually enter:

Primary: 8.8.8.8
Secondary: 8.8.4.4

Hope this works for you as well.

P.S.: Screw ATT Tech Support

I applied those DNS settings and it worked. Thanks a whole lot bboucher.Where did you get those DNS settings from?

I just need to go back and turn ther firewall back on the IP address associated to my PS3 IP address. The last AT&T tech support guy I spoke with yesterday his last troubleshooting step was to turn off the firewall completely on my PS3's IP address.

I ran the built in speed test on the PS3 and right now I'm only getting 6.5MB download speeds when I'm on the 18MB download plan.

They're Google's DNS servers. I found this solution, ironically, Googling. As for your speed issues, I don't have enough knowledge to troubleshoot that. I'll run a speedtest tonight or tomorrow and I'll see if I have similar results (I'm on the 12mb plan).

It doesn't surprise me ATT's remedy was to upgrade your service. Talk about bad business. While you're having issues with your service, they try to upsell you? Ridiculous.

Only a complete moron would think this is a speed related issue, and only complete morons work at ATT Tech Support. I once was told to go "f myself" by a Tier 1 loser. I called back, spoke with his manager, who had a recording of the conversation, and said she would take care of him for me. About 15 minutes later, I got a call from a random number saying it was ATT and they needed my contact information. It was the douche that cussed me out and I called him out on it and he hung up on me. I'm not sure what he was going to do with my information, but it was quite comical. True story.

When I call, I immediately request for Tier 2 Support. Tier 1 support is not worth your time.

(I'm posting this on as many forums as I can to get the word out, it frustrated the crap out of me)

Hey everyone, the slow PS3 downloads seem to be a DNS issue. This all started a few weeks ago when my PS3 failed to update to 3.56. After troubleshooting, I downloaded the 3.56 update on my PC, directly from Sony's site, and could only manage 20 kb/s. At this point, I knew it was not PS3 related. A few years ago, I had a similar issue with ATT DSL and had to use alternate DNS servers to fix my problem. Sure enough, changing my PS3 DNS Servers fixed this issue for me, yet again.

Here's a short tutorial for those who may need step by step instructions:
#1 - Go to Network Settings on your PS3
#2 - Select Customized
#3 - Use either Wired or Wireless, depending on your connection.
#4 - Enter your information as usual, when you get to "DNS Servers",
manually enter:

Primary: 8.8.8.8
Secondary: 8.8.4.4

Hope this works for you as well.

P.S.: Screw ATT Tech Support

I wonder if setting up my PC as a proxy server was a roundabout way of doing the same thing... which is why it worked?

Anyhow, I'll try the above and see what happens. And excuse my utter ignorance, but what exactly am I doing when I change to those DNS settings? Anything security-wise I should be aware of?

EDIT: Just for the sake of comparison, I just ran multiple tests (during peak usage hours) using default connection settings, using local proxy, and using the above DNS settings. The download speeds were identical for proxy and alternate DNS settings. Still running incredibly slow at default settings.